Early Trauma, Defense, and Effects on Later Development: A Discussion of the Papers of Anzieu, Mathelin, and Marans, December 2007, at the Conference Where the Wild Things Are Now: Exciting and Scary Things for Children and Therapists

IAM PRIVILEGED TODAY TO DISCUSS THE PAPERS OF THREE TALENTED and dedicated professionals. Our topic is a generously broad one, and the speakers have written both about anxiety-inducing trauma to children, as well as on the inevitability of anxiety which is part of the process of normal growth. They have shown how useful therapeutic intervention can be when distress is severe enough to threaten normal development. Their rich clinical examples illustrate the creative capacity of the child to help himself via symbolic processes and fantasy, and for the older child to share via speech. They also reveal the consummate respect that each of them has for their child patients and for the process through which we discover the truth.

My plan will be to elaborate some points about early anxiety, available defenses, and effects upon subsequent development that have been alluded to in these papers. I'll discuss the need for the parents as a protective shield

and the consequences of excessive anxiety on development when the very young child has only early or primitive defenses. Finally, I'll discuss some of the less sympathetic symptoms of children and potential therapist countertransference to this symptomatic behavior.

I recently heard a radio interview with an American woman, originally from Cambodia. As a young child, she and her family were forced by the Khymer Rouge to abandon their home in the city of Phnom Phen, along with everyone else in the city, and to undertake a long march to relocate in a primitive rural zone where they were to become forced laborers. There was not enough food or water, disease was rampant, and people were readily shot if they became difficult. Clearly, there was little margin for freedom of action for the adults in this situation, and the children, of course, witnessed the helplessness of their parents. When asked if she were frightened by the things she saw, she reported that the thing that terrified her and the other children most w